JTMP

Photo by Xavier Mascareñas/The Journal News

The 40-year-plus annual Great Hudson River Revival Music and Environmental Festival was held this weekend, raising funds for a slew of environmental protection organizations. It featured live music from Pete Seeger, Dan Zanes & Elizabeth Mitchell, Billy Bragg, Janis Ian David Bromberg, Martin Sexton, Arlo Guthrie and the Clearwater Generations, and many others.

More than 50 groups and singers performed on seven stages in Croton Point Park, which sits on the shores of the Hudson River. Attendance was said to be close to 10,000. There was music, food and crafts, but they main draw was environmentalism, and people wanted to show they care about global climate change, and keeping the environment clean and healthy.

Read more here, and watch highlights from festival below.
 

Justice Through Music teams up with Op-Critical for a song about the "hacktivist" group Anonymous which has been fighting and exposing corrupt governments, organizations and corporations. The music video features scenes from Tunisia to the US Chamber of Commerce, and explores the impact they have had in our society. It even delves into possible future targets that could be targeted by Anonymous. This video is also in support of Occupy Wall Street, and all the other thousands of cities where Occupy movements have sprung up. #occupywallstreet #occupydc #occupykst

The band Op-Critical recorded the song, and it was recorded at The House of Jam Studios and Dave Hanbury (www.houseofjamrecording.com). It was mixed and mastered by Edward Vinatea in New York. The computer animation graphics, including the chess scenes and the moving graphics were done by Brad Dismukes (www.BradDismukes.com), and CR and Dan at the JTMP Studios with additional graphics, and CR editing the video.

HD VIDEO: "ANONYMOUS" By Op-Critical

 SOCIARTS and the Iranian Student Association of Portland is holding a musical concert on June 25, and will be featuring the Persian musician Mohsen Namjoo. Mohsen's music has been described as "folk" by some people, and has been speaking out about the "Iranian Green Movement", and is often described as the "Bob Dylan of Iran".  He often appears at public functions dealing with Iran and the struggle by the Iranian people to bring freedom to their country. Mohsen had to flee Iran himself, for the security forces in Iran suppress musicians and free speech, and he feared arrest for speaking out through his music.

For more information, please go here:
http://www.sociarts.com/artist_events/1158/namjoo-unplugged-live-portland

The event is also coordinated with SOCIARTS, a great non-profit organization that is a production company and online community dedicated to socially conscious artists to promote positive social change through the arts and media. SOCIARTS’ mission is to create a vibrant environment for creative visionaries to come together and focus on conscious creativity and positive activism, while encouraging openness to the diversity of the world's cultures. Membership with SOCIARTS is free and open to anyone and everyone.

For more information visit: www.sociarts.com.

JTMP attended a Democracy Award Ceremony in Washington, DC on June 10, 2010, where Mohsen performed, and the video is below. The award was given to the Iranian people, for their Green Movement, by the National Endowment For Democracy. The instrument being played is a Setar (pronounced seh-tar), and has 3 strings. The "Seh" is Persian for "three", and "tar" means "string".

One of the top music activist today, Tom Morello talks candidly about Bob Dylan, and protest songs in an interview on Spinner.com. Excerpts are below.

Spinner.com: Tom Morello Reflects on Bob Dylan's 'Sophistication and Power'

May 24, 2011 - Cameron Matthews

 Tom Morello is as outspoken as he is prolific, bridging the gap between activism and art across the span of his career. From the ax-wielding guitar heroics and guerrilla antics of Rage Against the Machine to the pro-union sentiments of the Nightwatchman, Morello has always advocated for the downtrodden.

Spinner recently caught up with the guitarist about his work in Madison, Wis., standing up for the union workers caught in the middle of the embattled state's financial woes. Morello's passion, though noticeably more vocal, can be compared to Bob Dylan's personal struggle at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. We spoke with Morello about the role Dylan has played in his life as a songwriter.

When was the first time you had heard Bob Dylan and what was your overall impression?

I came late to the game of Bob Dylan by not discovering him until the '90s. My introduction to Bob Dylan was Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska' record. Then I started figuring out Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and then Bob Dylan through that. I'd always known the name but I had no idea how radical an artist he was in his early days. The record 'The Times They Are a-Changin' was the first cassette that I got and I was mesmerized and blown away and soon owned the entire catalog.

Read more here:
http://www.spinner.com/2011/05/24/tom-morello-bob-dylan/

Yesterday was the 96th birthday of the father of the electric guitar, the great Les Paul. In honor of his memory, Google put a "Guitar Google Doodle" at the top of their page, where visitors can drag the mouse cursor across the strings and "play guitar", and even record their performance and then play it back.

It was such a hit and is so popular, Google is leaving it up for another day in the US. "Due to popular demand, we're leaving the Les Paul doodle up in the U.S. through Friday for an encore. Thanks for jamming with us!" wrote Google designer Alexander Chen in an update on the company's blog Friday morning. This "Doodle" is rivaling the other popular doodles, such as Pac-Man.

Read bout the great life of Les Paul HERE, and to play and record your performance, head over to Google!

http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html